Vector-borne infectious diseases

Boosted regression trees predict, one year ahead, where human tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) cases are likely in Europe (AUC 0.85 regional, 0.82 municipal), with probability rising in central-western Europe.

This study develops a durable Lyme disease vaccine using CspZ-YAC187S antigen with Alum-CpG and Alum-Gal adjuvants, showing long-term protective immunity and memory responses.

This paper establishes Galleria mellonella as an invertebrate model to study Ehrlichia ruminantium pathogenesis and host-pathogen interactions, showing bacterial persistence and immune system hijacking.

This study sequenced 25 new Rickettsia typhi genomes, expanding the dataset to 29 complete genomes, revealing minimal genetic diversity and a clonal population structure.

The paper identifies high prevalence and genetic diversity of Anaplasma species in asymptomatic small ruminants in Corsica using nested PCR and sequence analysis.

This study characterizes the morphology and molecular behavior of Orientia tsutsugamushi in tick cell lines, revealing distinct replication dynamics and protein expression patterns compared to mammalian cells.

This study identifies four distinct growth stages of Orientia tsutsugamushi within host cells using single-cell analysis, revealing asynchronous growth and transcriptional/translation heterogeneity.

The paper isolates and analyzes six Candidatus Rickettsia mendelii strains, finding they have the smallest genome in the genus Rickettsia and retain features of the ancestral Rickettsia genome.

This paper introduces a method to recover Borrelia genomes from ticks using Whole Genome Amplification, significantly reducing the time and effort compared to traditional culturing methods.

The paper compares dual RNA-seq data from eight Orientia tsutsugamushi strains in endothelial cells, finding no clear gene expression patterns correlating with virulence but identifying strain-specific interferon responses and conserved bacterial pathways.

This study shows that OspA antibodies inhibit B. burgdorferi transmigration in vitro, with some antibodies causing bacterial aggregation and others blocking movement without agglutination.

A tick found in a home was infected with Borrelia turicatae, and the homeowner had a prior undiagnosed febrile illness, suggesting possible recurrent tick exposure.

This study identifies and maps tick species in Swabi, Mardan, and Charsadda districts, revealing morphological diversity and distribution patterns relevant to disease transmission.

In a 2019 survey of 1623 animals in 20 Tehran Province villages, 685 hard and 121 soft ticks were collected; females predominated (57.99%) and sheep yielded most ticks (60.04%).

This study updates the seroprevalence of heartwater in Guadeloupe's cattle and goats, finding stable endemicity and evidence of spread to Les Saintes.

This study compares inflammatory responses of human macrophages to different Coxiella burnetii strains, finding strain-specific transcriptional and cytokine responses.

This study identifies cyclophilin A as a host factor critical for the maturation and function of a virulence factor in obligate intracellular bacteria, with implications for therapeutic targeting.

This study investigates how Theileria annulata reprograms host chromatin epigenetically to facilitate infection and transformation, revealing unique modifications and a novel host-parasite epigenetic interface.

This study uses RNA-seq to compare gene expression in bovine macrophages infected with virulent and attenuated Babesia bovis strains, revealing distinct transcriptional responses.

This paper shows Altiratinib targets PRP4K in Theileria annulata, disrupting RNA processing and inducing apoptosis in infected cells, with efficacy against drug-resistant strains.

This study identifies RLip, a conserved lipase in Rickettsia rickettsii, which facilitates intracytosolic colonization by enabling escape from phagolysosomal fusion.

This study develops an iterative Bayesian forecast model for Ixodes scapularis population dynamics, showing improved accuracy with weather and host data, particularly for nymph survival and disease risk prediction.

This study identifies risk factors for Ehrlichia canis infection in urban dogs in Iquitos, Peru, and suggests targeted interventions to reduce transmission.

The paper evaluates how plant invasions affect tick exposure risk through microclimate and host abundance pathways in native and invaded plant communities.

The paper analyzes unmapped reads from whole-genome sequencing data of cattle breeds to reveal geographic variation in pathogen diversity across Europe and Africa.

This study models environmental drivers of Ixodes ricinus tick population dynamics using climate data and field surveys, finding temperature thresholds for life cycle stages and climate change impacts on tick abundance.

This study shows that Peromyscus leucopus develops acquired tick resistance against Ixodes scapularis, reducing tick feeding success and pathogen ingestion.

This study evaluates nanopore adaptive sampling for detecting Borrelia burgdorferi in ticks, finding it highly specific but with moderate sensitivity and high false-negative rates.

This paper demonstrates that FH-Fc constructs can kill Lyme borreliae and reduce infection in vivo by targeting complement evasion mechanisms.

The paper uses structural equation modeling to analyze how cervid and rodent abundances affect Lyme borreliosis hazard in boreal island communities.